I have a very good visual memory and a desire to know all the details of the new perfumes shaping our modern universe. But the recent 2 years have been a disaster in terms of launches and it became almost impossible for me to smell, know, memorize, analyze, study, evaluate and promote the high quality. There are many launches and the brands do not communicate well in their constant desire to have new consumers. Actually, it is extremely easy to launch a perfume today and the increasing number of brands, flankers and license contracts are here to show a business model that proved to be very good as a short time investment but with many other negative impacts. The first result was a dramatic change in terms of quality. Many new launches are bad not because the teams behind them have a nose inside the bottles of the competition but also because perfumers have not enough time to properly work. This was said underlined officially this fall by Firmenich (and is not only me who consider the new Opium a very bad creation). But another result that will be devastating in the following 10 years is the dissolution of the "brand model". What marketing has taught us since more than 50 years will not work anymore and all the classic notions used in business, with little impact on the fragrance itself, will collapse. The image I post is from a Romanian website and I saw it first while looking for a TV program. In fact, the whole Eastern Europe and more recently Asia is invaded with products that do not exist but can be purchased. They are a new type of fake perfumes that are the direct effect of what was done very wrong in the past 10 years. "Creative counterfeiting" is the new threat and has nothing to do with our image of fake perfumes. Last month I was completely confused inside Sephora in front of 6 versions of Issey Miyake and other 5 Givenchy, desperately seeking the first/original perfume to compare it with the new flanker. The brand and trademark as we knew it, with a very clear name, design, logo, graphic code, etc. doesn't exist anymore and doesn't represent anything for the consumer, with several notable exceptions like Chanel 5.
Today there is no more need to copy a famous perfume because there are very little famous perfumes in the forest of launches. But you can invent perfumes that do not exist with all the characteristic of a strong name. Unless you are passionate about perfumes, you will never be aware because your mind cannot process all the visual information.
There is something extremely different compared to 1980's. In this land of confusion a consumer does not know how an original perfume really looks. Producing something similar is also very easy because the business model was perfected in the past 10 years in Paris. The printing technology is very advanced everywhere and the bottle making also. Because perfumes are not very complicated today, even the creation of a similar juice is very easy. Selling a perfume is also easier than ever in countries that are less complicated than France. I know companies in my country that were producing labels with the same quality like those used by brands like Hermès, Chanel, Dior, etc in Paris for their ready to wear collections. The truth is that technology and knowledge are no more the competitive advantage of companies working Paris.
Stores like H&M and Zara made the latest catwalk models accessible worldwide to a decent price but this model will be soon transformed in a distribution network of perfumes. Expect for something similar to Sephora selling fashionable perfumes without any investment in advertising. Perfumes cannot be protected anywhere and trademark issues can be avoided with amazing grace.
Today almost everything in fragrance is mass market and you'll see in the next 10 years a new type of perfume stores that will challenge dramatically the classic brands. Fashion goods are now extensively counterfeited in Asia and they enter the EU through several known points. Today India and China are not yet able to produce very good counterfeited perfumes because both countries lack the basic ingredient - the right perfumers for this job. In several years, when the industrial production of several major aroma chemicals will be solved (while Europe is losing time and money with regulations) and when they will have the right people the western monopole will disappear in a short time. This is the consequence of the modern business model. Today people from everywhere want new perfumes they usually find during planes and this constant change combined with the inflation of products will finally lead to the appearance of the "creative faking". You do not fake anymore Chanel No 5 but instead is more appealing to invent the new Nina Ricci, the new Paco Rabanne, the new Hugo Boss, the new Lancôme, the new Dior, the new Gucci and sell them in the right place.
One of the major problem in Asia is the lack of creation. As you know, there is no book to teach you how to build modern perfumes and having a GC is not enough to master the perfumes.
The quality of the packaging has severely declined for the original creations while the quality of the counterfeited merchandise has severely improved.
Back in Romania for several days I have found the most ingenious forms of counterfeited perfumes and the most advanced distribution network. Several brands in Paris have no idea about the dangers they will face in the next years and I'm sure they are not prepared at all for the economical losses.
Another form of counterfeiting that will emerge will challenge the niche brands. In other countries they are not considered niche / artistic but luxury and that's how they are promoted in the media. But like any new luxury merchandise in a new country they represent wealth and power and are the new target for a new social class that cannot afford the new Clive Christian perfume. Counterfeiting some niche brands is even easier. You cannot check the right product in the shop because it has a very selective distribution. This will not affect France, Germany or Italy. But all the Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East and South East Asia. This process is similar to the history of perfume counterfeiting in USA 80 years ago when Chanel and Bourjois were available only in a few NY shops before being sold almost everywhere.
But how do you suggest that a counterfeited perfume is real when everybody is on Internet? You create a dozen of "fake websites" where original and fake perfumes are mixed and when somebody will find a webpage with "1 Million Silver Paco Rabanne" with a good picture and description (but more expensive than in a new type of real shops), this will be enough for the illusion of a real perfume.
This year Paco Rabanne has launched Lady One Million but 2 years ago I found One Million pour femme a counterfeited perfume in Eastern Europe sold in a red packaging. It was on the market before the Paco Rabanne team had started to work on the real product! About 7 years ago or more, when the classic Climat de Lancôme has not been re-introduced by Lancôme, I found it in Romania and bought it because the smell was very close to the original creation of the 60's, though I knew it was a fake.
Another business opportunity for the "fake industry" is represented by the discontinued creations of the 80's and 90's. I constantly receive mails to suggest perfumes similar to less famous creations of the previous decade. There are many people in Europe willing to pay for a Ungaro or Ted Lapidus creation and they will never know if the perfume was re-issued or not in this land of confusion. For a brand hoping to make millions from a bottle this is not a business opportunity but for a small lab with a good network it is. The big surprise will come when people will chose a fake perfume because it still has the original touch, those labs do not care about IFRA. Today the fake Magie Noire found in the East is better than the original sold in the West and the difference is not made by the intention of the counterfeiters to produce high quality perfumes but it is the result of several "lost" molecules.
Today people know that Louis Vuitton has no eponymous perfume. But I could show you this is true only in Paris, London and New York.
Bottles to produce your own Nina Ricci flanker, they come in every colour.
Another business opportunity for the "fake industry" is represented by the discontinued creations of the 80's and 90's. I constantly receive mails to suggest perfumes similar to less famous creations of the previous decade. There are many people in Europe willing to pay for a Ungaro or Ted Lapidus creation and they will never know if the perfume was re-issued or not in this land of confusion. For a brand hoping to make millions from a bottle this is not a business opportunity but for a small lab with a good network it is. The big surprise will come when people will chose a fake perfume because it still has the original touch, those labs do not care about IFRA. Today the fake Magie Noire found in the East is better than the original sold in the West and the difference is not made by the intention of the counterfeiters to produce high quality perfumes but it is the result of several "lost" molecules.
Today people know that Louis Vuitton has no eponymous perfume. But I could show you this is true only in Paris, London and New York.
Did you enjoy my article? Sign up for updates about new fragrances, reviews of artistic perfumes and exceptional vintage masterpieces. I would be very happy if you would consider joining 1000 Fragrances, throughRSS feed,GoogleFriend connect, Facebook (more personal), or any other way that appeals to you.
Fragrance is the 8th Art - Octavian Coifan - Le Parfum est le 8ème Art
. It took me about 2 weeks to smell and analyze them and it cost me a fortune but it was such a nice present to celebrate the 5 years of 1000 Fragrances (though it was me who paid the bill for the beautiful things I wrote). I'll present very few of them, like I did with the 2 Paul Poiret that I adore, this takes a lot of time, they were very expensive for me and I do not think it is good to write about masterpieces that cannot be smelled by my readers even if I write a sketch formula of them. Also, as a friend has recently told me "too much information kills information" and I have to be careful.
: "For Toute la Forêt, the shiny dark green glass flacon expresses the primary color of a forest and its ponds; the oval paper label is embossed and printed with a symbolist forest scene, and the box covered with green black and ivory stripped cotton fabric, expresses the dense foliage of the forest, when highlighted by the sunlight."
. Their analytic composition is presented at the end of the book in a voluminous compedium of headspaces. (See the first part of the article)
